Youth and Young Adults
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One of the largest challenges facing Unitarian Universalism as a faith is the failure to retain our youngest members. As a youth and young adult chaplain, representative of young adults on the UUA Board, and a person dedicated to ministering to the changing needs of our youngest Unitarian Universalists, I feel I am uniquely qualified to address these issues at the Associational level.

I believe we have just scratched the surface of what youth and young adult ministry can and should look like in our Association, and feel strongly that we need to be more accountable to our youth advisers, and establish a stronger presence on campuses across the country. We have not only the opportunity but the obligation to use social media to connect with and serve our youngest generations, recognizing that these are the people most receptive to our Unitarian Universalist message of religious pluralism and universal love.

The UUA has undergone several transitions in the way it ministers to both youth and young adults: eliminating the national Young Religious Unitarian Universalist organization in 2007, consolidating the offices of Youth and Young Adult and Campus Ministries in 2008, and changing its core staff several times in this period. The unwelcome result is that a whole generation of UUs has been disenfranchised, and the next generation will have little or no Associational support. Because my involvement in Unitarian Universalism was bolstered by the relationships I made with peers growing up throughout the Association, I feel obligated to advocate for more systemic support and further opportunities for our youth and young adults to meet and work with one another.

I also know that some of the hardest-working and least-recognized servants in our entire faith are the core of under-trained, unpaid youth advisers. We as a faith community must honor the essential work they are doing and provide more institutional accountability to their efforts, through trainings, certifications and recognition.

In the course of my own work I have helped to create several online communities that assist with UU outreach and relationship-building with and to youth and young adults. In 2005 my efforts resulted in both the Donna DiSciullo Award for Young Adult and Campus Ministry and the launch of the young adult ministry effort of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Church of the Younger Fellowship (CYF).